Get Your Motor Running for Market Season
No lie, the guest lineup for Local Food Forum’s “Better” Dialogues webinar, tomorrow (Monday, April 29) at 7 p.m. central, is awesome.
Co-host Chef Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe and I will lead the following experts (and lively personalities) through a discussion titled Outdoor Farmers Market Season Kickoff: Why You Should Go, and we’ll cover areas — such as increasing food access, promoting sustainability, and building community — that go beyond the main reason most people shop at farmers markets… which is to buy delicious, super-fresh food from our local farmers.
Our guests are:
Laura Avery, a true legend in the farmers market world. Laura became manager of the Santa Monica Farmers Market adjacent to Los Angeles in 1982, a year after its founding, and at a time when there were just more than 1,000 farmers markets across the entire country. Over her following 36 years as manager, Laura played the leading role in growing the Santa Monica market from 23 farmers and a relative handful of shoppers to roughly 130 farmers and throngs of attendees.
Matthew Ruffi, who heads up the Link Up Illinois program — run by the Experimental Station non-profit — that provides financial support for markets’ “Link Match” programs, and also organizes Chicago’s Uptown Farmers Market (in his role as president of the Chicago Market co-op grocery project)
Janelle St. John, executive director of Chicago’s Growing Home Inc. non-profit
Kyle Jacobson of Illinois’ Jacobson Family Farms
Alex Finn of Michigan’s Finn’s Ranch
Throw In the Chips for Cinco de Mayo
Local Food Forum is pleased to present a series of articles produced by University of Illinois Extension and UI Health that highlights recipes and tips on how to eat healthy on any budget. The series supports UI Extension’s Eat.Move.Save. program.
This week’s segment is timely in two ways. First, you’ll see a tasty-sounding guacamole recipe timed to the festive Cinco de Mayo holiday, which takes place a week from today (May 5, obviously). The second page is all about keeping produce fresh, with some tips for storing your veggies and fruits as the local outdoor farmers market season starts to expand.
Their article notes, “The produce from local supermarkets comes a long way from across the U.S. and even across the world. By the time you purchase your produce, it’s likely been traveling for at least a week.”
All the more reason to shop from local farmers. The products at the farmers markets have been picked no more than a day or two before. The added shelf life of farmers market produce can lower the cost of your purchases (because there is less waste), and is one of the less discussed reasons to shop at the markets.
Thanks to Bianca Bautista of UI Extension Cook County and Illinois Extension SNAP Educator Paola Gordillo for this great content.
Bob’s World, and Welcome to It
On Saturday (April 27), I published photos from my first gosling sighting of the year at North Pond in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. But that wasn’t all there was to my nature walk en route to Green City Market.
As I strolled down Stockton Drive past the entrance to Lincoln Park Zoo, I heard an almost-shrieking bird call. That could only mean that the herons (above photo) had returned to their nests in the bower of trees at the zoo’s western perimeter. If you’ve never experienced these birds, it’s quite a show; occasionally you’ll see a heron fly to the trees across the drive.
Flowering trees are among the glories of spring in Chicago, and we have a lot of them in our part of town. As you can see, many of them are still in full bloom.